A Days Harvest

Well today I decided to  harvest some of the produce in the garden so I can start preparing it for winter supply. We have been eating on the garden for a while but it has been starting to produce more than we can eat.

 

 

Isn't this a beautiful sight?? Now for "What do I do with it"? time. I am going to make zucchini bread with the zucchini and freeze it, it is so nice to have fresh zucchini bread in the middle of winter to munch on. The tomatoes I will make stewed tomatoes, I have made tomato soup with our fresh tomatoes as well and that is really good, especially if you like tomato soup. I am going to dry the peppers and the yellow squash, I really like them in the soups that I make in the winter time. Carrots and radishes are for dinner tonight, the cheese will be waxed and put in the refrigerator to be aged. Last but not least the cucumbers, I am going to try drying some of them for chips to munch on and would like to try a cold cucumber soup to see what it is like. I haven't had it before and what a better time than now to try it. The Lord has truly blessed us today, as usual. He is so good.

SPLIT LABOR

Today Janice and I split our labor efforts. Janice worked extremely hard and split four to five wheelbarrow loads of fire wood, and stacked it, for the winter. I did not get pictures of her efforts, sorry!

I on the other hand, I worked all day on another double batch of cheese. This was the second for this year.

I am sure the efforts of the both of us today, will be appreciated this winter.

Two more projects

Our youngest son, who is on vacation from school right now, came down last week to help us do some of the projects we wanted to get done before this winter hit. So we got started with two of the projects on our list
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RETAINING WALL

Don and Jon got the holes dug in a day and got the first post in.

Then the three of us got the rest of the posts in. What a job. The 6X6's were 12 feet long and a real bugger to get set.

 I think we did a pretty good job of it though.

They look pretty straight to me.

It took us a couple of days getting this done because Jon had to remove the facial board from off the roof of the shop before we could get started. Don and I are planning on finishing out the roof all the way to the beams to make a covered storage for hay behind the shop.

Then on to the second project, which we had started last year already.

PADDOCK

Jon got on the tractor and got down to the paddock where he and Don hauled out some large logs. There were 3 large pieces about the size in the photo shown above. Then Jon started to rake the whole paddock down while Don and I picked up the rock and debris from when we had this area logged and cleared of the roots.

In the picture at the bottom is an area that had a big dip in it and Don and Jon got it raked around to fill in the dip. It is really looking good.

Now all we have to do is section off the horse stalls with some electric net fencing and then plant the whole paddock with seed for pasture. Then water, water, water. Hope it comes up quick so the rains this year won't wash what we have done away.

Peepers Two

I got a couple of good pictures of the babies the other day. I am trying not to disturb the nest too much because I don't want to take the chance of having mom fly away and abandoning the babies.

I can't help it, every time I look at these pictures they make me smile.

I hope they brighten your day as well.



Little Peepers

Miss Robin has hatched her eggs and we now have 3 little babies. They are so cute. Momma is busily feeding and taking care of them. I happened to get a shot of them while momma was out on a food run. Hope you enjoy them.

You can't tell from the picture but there are three of them in the nest.

I will try to take pictures periodically as they grow so you too can see how beautiful God is.

Finished

We finally got the buck pen finished. We finished it last night and got the guys separated from the girls.

The little guys are eating some of the hay we put in this morning.

Although they aren't so little any more.

Needless to say Grizzly wasn't very happy when we took him away from the girls, but it needed to be done  because he is starting to get stinky and that is a sign of breeding season to begin.

This little guy is looking for his momma. He was a mommas boy in the worst way. Wouldn't leave her side.

They are all still wondering what the heck happened. They are all crying to beat the band. We had to apologize to the neighbors for all the racket that they have been putting on.

All should be well in a couple of days when all realize that this is the way it is.

New Neighbor

The other day Don noticed a bird nest in the Yellow Delicious apple tree just outside our patio.

We can see the top of the tree from the deck.

I looked in side the nest last week and noticed a blue egg.

I looked again in the nest the day before yesterday a Robin sitting in the nest.

So I took a few pictures of her this morning. What a beautiful sight to see. She looks so content. I did take to many pictures and she flew off so I quite.